11 February 2014

Change happens all the time. When it comes to a neighborhood, some call it progress, while others lament the passage of time. Regardless of the position you take, it can be jarring to wake up one day and find the things you're accustomed to no longer being there.

On our corner in Trinidad is the former home and office of Dr. Louis E. Lowman, M.D. Neighbors were born in that house and treated in his office. It was one of the only stand-alone homes in all of Trinidad. By the end of today or tomorrow, it will likely only be a memory, to be replaced by a six-unit condominium building. I'm putting these pictures online in hope that those who are interested in our history will have something to find when they go searching on the Internet, wondering what used to be at 1328 Montello Avenue NE before it was replaced with something modern and new.

10 January 2014

"Made up my mind, make a new start, goin' to California with an achin' in my heart." - Led Zeppelin

I'm going to keep this one short for now, and not bury the lede. We're moving to California soon.

Jaime and I have lived in DC for a decade, it's our home, and there's no doubt we love it like crazy. We spent weeks agonizing over what it would mean to leave behind the friends we've made and communities we've connected with here. In the end, I was offered a career opportunity that's far too exciting to pass up, so we're going to take the plunge and see what life is like in the Bay Area.

We promise we'll both have more to say on the blog and in other places in the coming weeks. The entire thing has brought forth a flood of thoughts that we need to write down and share.

18 July 2013

I used the DC311 mobile app to report this damaged school zone flasher on April 23, 2013.

**UPDATE: I just got off the phone with Ben Berkowitz, co-founder and CEO of SeeClickFix. It sounds like, for this specific request, downtime in the API may have caused it to get lost in a purgatory of sorts, rather than it being directed to DC311/OUC. Berkowitz noted that if a service request continues to show as "Open" with no response at all, it may be best to manually close the request and open another. Additionally, he mentioned that a very small number of requests in DC—something like 30 out of 18,000—have been caught up in this type of glitch. You can check under "Notified" in the right column on a specific request on the SeeClickFix site to confirm that it's been passed on to DC311. From my conversation with Berkowitz, it's also clear that DC has been at the forefront of municipalities embracing SeeClickFix as a large-scale, interactive tool.While I still have concerns about the confusion at OUC about whether or not the request could be accessed depending on if I submitted it via the mobile app or via the SeeClickFix website, I am generally pleased with the interaction and results today. Overall, I am happy to see DC embrace Gov 2.0 tools, and I hope bumps in the road like these are considered as learning opportunities and not as reasons to inhibit or stop the progress we've made in this realm so far.**

***

Hang on, folks, this is a long one, though worth it, because it very likely outlines any number of the collective frustrations out there with the state of government ops and constituent services in the District (and possibly beyond)....

Now, instead of solely relying on operators fielding phoned-in requests to the city’s 311
line, residents and visitors can send non-emergency reports to 311
through SeeClickFix’s free mobile and web platform that allows them to
pinpoint locations and upload photos and videos.[emphasis mine]

SeeClickFix is a free mobile and web
platform that allows citizens to submit online reports of non-emergency
public problems to governments. The SeeClickFix platform is available in
many locations and formats, including mobile phones and widgets on the
Washington Post and other city blogs. Citizens can access SeeClickFix at
SeeClickFix.com, The Washington Post, Greater Greater Washington, and The City Fix.

...

Overall, the integration of
SeeClickFix with the District’s 311 system ensures a seamless flow of
information between residents and District officials, and a more
efficient way of fixing problems throughout the city. [again, emphasis mine]

After over a month with no repairs on a lopsided school zone flasher, and a still-open request on DC's SeeClickFix site, I reached out to DC311 on Twitter on Monday, July 1, and followed up again on Wednesday, July 17:

11 July 2013

For years, there has been a leak of some sort coming up through the sidewalk on West Virginia Avenue NE, just north of the intersection with Fenwick Street, in front of property used by the DC Department of Public Works.

This is what it looked like for a long time:

The "West Virginia Avenue Wetland"

Water constantly flowed down the sidewalk. The water had been sitting for so long that cattails and other aquatic plants had colonized the walkway. As you can see in the photo above, the city's solution was to throw a few cones in the pond and call it a day.

I complained about this regularly on Twitter, mostly to DC Water, assuming this was their problem. They tested the water, though, and asserted that it was not coming from one of their pipes.

I figured this wasn't possible. The water had to be coming from a municipally-owned source, and DC Water controls all of that in the city. But, they're the experts!

The morning I took the photo above, I included the mayor's Twitter handle in my semi-regular complaint. Surprisingly, I received a direct message shortly after letting me know that the executive's office would be getting to the bottom of this issue quickly. I guess you just have to get your timing right, sometimes!

After a few days, crews were there digging up the area around the leak. Jaime asked the workers if they had found anything, but they treated it like a state secret and wouldn't talk.

Construction crews dig to find the source of the leak.

Finally, a few days later, this email arrived from Matt Desjardins, who works in the mayor's office:

Hello – Mayor Gray asked me to follow up with you regarding some standing water on the sidewalk near a DPW facility in NE. I know that this has been an issue you have been looking to resolve for some time now and I apologize if any of the below information is redundant.

Here is what we currently know. DPW is working with its partner agencies to address the issue:

· DPW has hired a contractor to address the flooding of the sidewalk at 1725 West Virginia Avenue, NE (Fleet campus). The contractor uncovered an abandoned storm water drain that originates at a manhole and dead ends into multi chambered structure under the sidewalk. When it rains, all of the runoff water backs up in the manhole and bubbles up onto the sidewalk and street on West Virginia Avenue, NE. There is no access for the runoff into the sewer system.

· The current DC Water regulations require that there be either an oil/water separator or a storm water management system on the property. Neither system is in place for this section of the campus.

· One possible solution is to have DC Water build a storm water management system as it builds the new parking lot. DC Water needs to use the Fleet campus to construct a 110 foot shaft to address the Bloomingdale flooding issue. DC Water will construct a new parking lot for DPW to replace the parking lot where the shaft will be used for the tunnel.

· Unfortunately, a solution may be a few months away.

The upshot is this: there's a drainage system under the sidewalk that apparently does not connect to the regular storm sewer system. It could get "fixed" when DC Water works on the tunnel that will ultimately divert storm water from Bloomingdale.

14 June 2013

By necessity, this is just going to be a narrative without embellishment. I just wanted to share this story because I mentioned it on Twitter, and many people responded out of concern for me and out of anger at the situation.

I hopped on a Capital Bikeshare bike at the station and headed north, across the 11th Street bridge. When I got to the corner of 11th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue SE, I had to wait for a red light. Four kids were standing on the corner, next to the fence that has been put up around the charred remains of Frager's Hardware Store. There were three girls and one boy, all around the same age (12 or so).

One of the girls approached me and asked for five dollars. I told her I didn't have any cash on me. She looked at the bike and said, "You need money to pay for that, right?"

I told her, "Yes, I use a credit card."

She said, "Credit cards have money on them, give me some!"

The light turned green at that point, and I said, "Sorry, no, I have to go."

As I started across Pennsylvania Avenue, she lunged at me, pushed on my backpack, and yelled, "Give me money! Give me money!" a couple times, while the other kids laughed. The events of Tuesday on the MBT came to mind, and I turned around to make sure the other kids weren't coming after me. I scolded them and asked if they heard about the MBT assault.

The boy in the group started yelling, "Fuck you! Fuck you! Get the fuck out of my neighborhood!" At this point, I realized I could hurry up and bike away, but I wasn't in the mood to let these kids think they could get away with threatening someone on a bicycle, so I yelled out, "These kids are trying to assault me."

I moved my bicycle to the southwest corner of the intersection (in front of the dry cleaners) and called 911.

Kids in the city have it out for cyclists. Just tried to assault me at 11th & Pennsylvania SE. Called 911. No more tolerance. This ends now.
— say 'Eye Em Gōph' (@IMGoph) June 13, 2013

A gentleman came out of the dry cleaners and told me that the kids had been causing problems in the past, throwing rocks at the store's windows.

Two officers arrived after about 3 or 4 minutes. I told them what happened, and in which direction the kids went after our encounter. A quick check on the radio and the first officer was able to confirm that a third officer had some kids a block down the street. The second officer went to bring them back.

While she was gone, I spoke with the first officer. She told me that kids in the area were apt to do things like this, and that the children doing this get younger every year. The second officer returned a couple minutes later with a woman in her cruiser. This turned out to be the mother of the girl who had shoved me. The first officer insisted that the young girl be brought back as well, so a couple more awkward minutes passed while the first officer, the girl's mother, and I stood around waiting for the other officer to bring back the girl.

When they returned, the first officer asked the girl to state what had happened. She basically gave the full story, but claimed that she had just touched the bike, and not pushed me. The officers wanted her to apologize to me, which she did, but clearly not in a sincere manner.

The police told the girl she could be charged with both aggravated panhandling and simple assault. The girl's mother quietly told her not to be stupid and to apologize.

The officers stepped aside for a moment, leaving me with the girl and her mother. We stood there awkwardly as a light rain began to fall. The officers then called me over to where they were discussing things, and asked if I wanted to press charges. They were willing to lock the girl up, and told me that there would be a few hours of paperwork, but it was up to me how to proceed.

I told the officers I wanted the girl to learn a lesson, but I wanted to do what they thought was best. They called her over, and had her stand right in front of me. The officers told the girl that I had the power to ruin her life then and there, to give her a criminal record. They told me to tell her what I thought about the whole situation.

I told the girl that I thought what she did was stupid, and there was no reason for her to have done anything more than say hello to me on the street.

I'm okay. But these kids are going to learn a lesson. MPD is here.— say 'Eye Em Gōph' (@IMGoph) June 13, 2013

The officers jumped in and told her to look me in the eye, stand up straight, stop mumbling, and pay attention. The girl's mother, standing nearby, implored her daughter to listen. The police asked her if she had goals, wanted to go to college, and wanted to get away from the bad influences around her. They reminded her that her attitude and actions were going to damn her to a life of dead-ends.

Finally, I told the girl my name, and offered my hand to shake. She did, and apologized again (personally, it still didn't feel 100% sincere, but I remember how much of a sullen brat I could be at 12 years old myself).

Her mother said she'd be going home and would be on a short leash. I obviously don't know what happened once they got home, but I hope we got some sort of message into the girl's head.

As I got back on the Bikeshare bike to head towards home (yeah, I racked up some fees for having the bike out more than 30 minutes!), I thanked the officers and they apologized for my ruined evening. I told them it was absolutely not their place to apologize, and thanked them for doing a great job.

The officers remarked that, while the girl avoided a criminal record, they had her name and would put her on a "juvenile watch list." If she gets caught causing trouble again, there will be no mercy.

03 June 2013

Sloppy work on blogs deserves to be called out, especially when the author of the work seeks an air of authority on a subject. I'm taking this opportunity to ask Simon Jacobsen to do a better job with the Vanished/The Ruined Capitol blog.

Early last year, his blog called "The Ruined Capitol" (since re-branded "Vanished:Washington," though the URL never changed) was briefly profiled by the Washington City Paper. In this short interview, he gave an interesting quote:

I'm not putting any facts down...

In fact, Mr. Jacobsen puts a lot of facts down with every post. The most important of these facts is the address of the buildings. Unfortunately, he can be sloppy with those facts. Here's an example:

Mr. Jacobsen shows this picture and says it's at 6th and College Streets NE. That's a non-existent corner. There is a 6th and College Street NW, though. Here's a piece of the Baist Atlas for that part of the city in 1937 (two years after the date shown on the photo):

That's actually the corner of Georgia Avenue and Howard Place NW. Jacobsen manages to start by saying the original location is in a different quadrant, then believes today's corner has somehow moved a couple blocks away. It's terribly sloppy. Google Maps is how he verifies the location of all present-day buildings. He'd be helped by actually going out to the corners where he believes these old buildings were located and doing some ground-truthing. It would probably make clear some of the more egregious errors and avoid the embarrassment of publishing mistakes.

Here's one more. The page was taken down after I pointed out an error, he refused to acknowledge it, and further information from me made it crystal clear that he had made a simple mistake. I saved the page as a rough PDF:

Jacobsen mistook the numeral "1" (for 1st Street) for the letter "I" (for Eye Street), and insisted Florida Avenue "flattens out" (whatever that means) at Eye Street NE. A simple walk around the neighborhood would show how incorrect that is, but he didn't take the time to go out and look at things in the real world.

It's a shame, it could be an authoritative site, but there are so many holes in it, it's hard to say how many of the before and after pictures he posts are just plain wrong.

A better example of the genre is the "Then and Now" series that Kent Boese did for Greater Greater Washington. Admittedly, this is more thorough than the "drive-by shooting" (a poor choice of words) that Jacobsen claims to offer at his site, but the basic idea is that a little more research goes a long way.

23 April 2013

I'm not here to give you a prediction regarding the results of today's election. We'll find that out very soon. What I do want to put out there are some things that I would wager would be talked about given a few different scenarios. Here they are, in no particular order, and remember, I'm no professional prognosticator!

If Anita Bonds wins:

- She has the inside track for reelection in just under a year. Yes, that's right. The primary for next year's general election is April Fool's Day (April 1), and the power of incumbency will aid her greatly in that Democratic primary. Voters will get to vote for two candidates in the November 2014 election, and whomever has the (D) next to their name is a shoo-in for one of those seats.

- Expect talk about how the "newcomers/gentrifiers/progressives/white residents" still aren't organized enough to elect someone citywide (even though that loosely-defined demographic just did that with Grosso's election last fall).

If Patrick Mara wins:

- Expect some right-leaning blog or Washington Post pundit (George Will? Charles Krauthammer?) to write about how Mara's victory signals that "even a jurisdiction with an African-American majority is sick and tired of the librul Demoncrats and Barry Obummer." Don't expect them to discuss the fact that many of the people voting for Mara are HUGE Obama supporters and that the party affiliation of Council candidates really has little to nothing to do with national politics.

- If David Catania chooses to run for attorney general, mayor, or simply retire in 2014, Mara's incumbency would give him a pretty solid shot at reelection. As mentioned above, there will be two spots on the November 2014 ballot for at-large councilmember, and whoever wins the Democratic primary on April 1 has the inside track at one of those spaces. Since there would be no incumbent Democrat at that point, I'd expect an epic 15-way scrum for the Democratic primary.

- If David Catania chooses to run for reelection as councilmember, it would set up an interesting race between him and Mara for the likely non-Democratic seat in November 2014.

- Expect talk about how it looks possible for the city to elect a white mayor in 2014.

- Expect wailing, gnashing of teeth, rending of garments and the like from those who supported Bonds.

If Elissa Silverman wins:

- Elissa would have the inside track for reelection in 2014. (Seeing a pattern here? Elected incumbency is a powerful thing in DC.) Expect an attempt from the groups she didn't strongly court (big business, etc.) to draft a strong challenge to her in the coming year, though.

If Frumin, Redd, or Zukerberg win:

- This won't happen. One does not have a broad-enough base, another represents a party with no infrastructure, and the third is a non-serious one-trick pony.